Trifolium aureum
species of plant

Trifolium aureum, known by the various common names large hop trefoil, large trefoil, large hop clover, golden clover or hop clover, is a species of flowering plant native to much of Eurasia.
Description
Large hop trefoil is a small erect herbaceous biennial plant growing to 10–30 cm (4–12 in) tall. Like all clovers, it has leaves divided into three sessile leaflets, each leaflet 15–25 mm (5⁄8–1 in) long and 6–9 mm broad.
The yellow flowers are arranged into small, elongated round inflorescences 12–20 mm diameter, located at the end of the stem. Each individual flower is decumbent. As they age, the flowers become brown and paper-like. The fruit is a pod usually containing two seeds.
Similar plants
Other plants that have three leaflets and small yellow flowers include T. campestre (hop trefoil, which is shorter with smaller foliage), T. dubium (lesser hop trefoil), Medicago lupulina, and Oxalis stricta.
Distribution and habitat
Trifolium aureum is native throughout Europe (in Spain only in the northeast), western and northern Asia, and the Middle East (in Ciscaucasia and western Siberia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, northern Iran, Lebanon and Turkey). It is also native to the Canary Islands.
“Trifolium aureum” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Trifolium, aureum and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Trifolium aureum” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Trifolium, aureum and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q158941. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Scientific names, classifications and consensus can change while older terminology persists in catalogues and historical literature. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Trifolium aureum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.